2019-07-23

Mon 22. July: Back on the internet

After 7 days we finally made it back to Makambako and access to sufficient bandwidth for doing reasonable work on the internet. Which is why I managed to update the Blog only now. Sorry for that.
But the morning was tough: We didn’t manage to finalize the details of a forest plot registration with Ragpa. We did have an interesting and intensive discussion on the details. The hard part was how GRACOMA shall recover the expenses for contracting the Mtunza Misitu to do the plot registration and regular supervision. This would have to come from farmers, since they want the registration to apply for a loan from a bank. We can forget cash. And this isn’t a loan, this is a fee for supervision of a security (=the growing trees) with which farmers can get a loan. So how? Farmers don’t have cash, or if they do they need it for other stuff. So…..  - the breakthrough came when we realized that GRACOMA could also accept growing trees from farmers as payment for making the controls. The tricky part was then how GRACOMA can later cash in on such trees. The solution: A farmer uses the trees as security to get a loan from a bank. He pays for the collateral supervision by GRACOMA with a tree per acre per year. When s/he pays back the loan to the bank it means s/he has money. So GRACOMA offers him the option to also buy back the growing trees he paid to GRACOMA or to leave those trees to GRACOMA to harvest and cash in as and when GRACOMA sees fit. Well, is this too complicated? I always worry that this idea of collateral management of trees will result in too complicated procedures, but again and again Ragpa and Bahat and the other guys around this idea insist that they want to work this out. Okay, so we keep it up and work this one out!
We also met and talked with the young briketting people. I was surprised how well they had made the transition from paid workers of a project to independent entrepreneurs working with a loan. They are at the brink of making their first income with the sale of the first 10 tons of brikettes. It would be a shame if so shortly before reaching this important milestone they would fail due to unforeseen financial or technical issues. So we are on the alert to watch carefully, and to help out if they can’t solve a problem.
And finally back up to Makambako….. and the internet!